Fusae Waters (née Yoshimura) passed away peacefully in her home in Eureka on May 27, 2023.

Fusae was born in Kita-Kyushu City, Japan on August 18, 1928, as the second of three children to Kikujiro Yoshimura and Tome Yamashita, and was a descendant of samurai lineage on her mother’s side. Fusae was a very bright child. She was admitted to high school in the early 1940s, which was extremely rare for females in Japan at that time; girls’ education beyond middle school was not compulsory and only those who were top academic performers could attend high school. Her education was interrupted by World War II when she arrived at school one day only to find it had become a crater after being bombed. Thereafter, she survived the war conscripted to work in rice fields. Years later she recounted how lucky she was to have worked in the rice fields and not the factories (as some kids were forced to) because factories were allied targets. The war ended and Fusae eventually graduated high school with honors.

In her early twenties, in the interest of improving her English, she applied for a job at the post exchange on the U.S. Air Force base in Fukuoka, Japan. While working in the post exchange she met an American airman, Floyd Waters, who was stationed there during the Korean war and he would eventually become her husband. After marrying and giving birth to their first child, Danny, in Japan, they moved to Arizona in 1953. Their stay in Arizona was brief, as Fusae hated the heat and complained to Floyd, which led them to eventually settle in Eureka. Fusae and Floyd had three more children: Eugene, Patricia, and Donald.

She eventually began a long career at General Hospital in Eureka as a housekeeper in the Labor and Delivery Department until she retired after 25 years of loyal service. Fusae was beloved and respected by her co-workers at the hospital, and she equally loved working there. She would often fondly tell her family after she retired about all the interesting people she worked with at the hospital. Fusae also settled into Humboldt County’s small, but vibrant Japanese community comprised mostly of women who had also married American GIs. For years she and her other Japanese friends cooked together, sang karaoke together, played bingo together, and laughed together. Fusae had a nickname within the Japanese community of “the saint” – no matter how much gossip she heard, she never repeated a word – a value she tried hard to instill in her grandchildren.

Fusae was a passionate gardener with an amazing green thumb. She grew all sorts of incredible fruits, vegetables, and flowers in her sizeable backyard – her blueberries were particularly legendary. She loved animals, and on more than one occasion she nursed baby birds who had fallen from their nests back to their health, until they were mature enough to fly off into the wild. Fusae had a heart of gold, a pure soul, and positively impacted the lives of all who knew her. Fusae was an amazing human, with an exceedingly rare amount of compassion for all. She will be missed beyond the words of human expression, but her memory and the life lessons she taught us will forever live in our hearts.

Fusae is preceded in death by her husband Floyd, her sons Danny and Eugene, her parents Kikujiro and Tome Yoshimura, and her older brother Iseo Yoshimura. She is survived by her daughter Patricia Waters, son Donald Waters, grandchildren Jiro Waters, Erica Botkin and Alex Botkin, and her younger brother Mitsuaki Yoshimura.

There will be no memorial service, and instead of flowers her family has asked that donations be made to Hospice of Humboldt or to charity in Fusae’s name.

###

Don Pedrotti, born December 30, 1951, at Redwood Memorial Hospital and Mary Mello, born April 5, 1950, at St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka passed away within 10 days of each other last March 2023 — Don on March 18 at home in his sleep after a long illness and Mary, his wife, on March 28 at St. Joseph Hospital — after battling a prolonged fight with diabetes and two strokes.

Don spend his entire life in Ferndale, graduating from Ferndale High School in 1970. He worked a few jobs including pulling green chain at Pacific Lumber Scotia and pouring concrete for Carl Brungs before taking over the family dairy farm on Grizzly Bluff Road in Ferndale.

Mary grew up in Arcata on a dairy farm until the family moved in 1956 to Orland and then to Lac La Hash, British Columbia, in 1960. They moved back to Blue Lake California in 1964, just before the big flood and ending back in Arcata again, where she graduated from Arcata High School in 1968. Mary worked with her best friend Rosie at all kinds of jobs, from Dot’s Restaurant, picking daffodil bulbs in McKinleyville and crab and shrimp for Lazio’s Seafood in Eureka to working data processing at St Joseph’s Hospital and the front office at Humboldt Central Labs.

Don and Mary met at a dance in Ferndale and married in the barn at their dairy farm on July 27, 1991, and lived and worked the farm life until Don retired in 2006.

Don was a hunter and looked forward to his yearly hunting trip to the cabin and making Italian sausage with his brothers. Mary enjoyed raising their boy Sonny and the annual Halloween party in the barn for all the kids. She also loved working in her yard and planting flowers everywhere around her home. Mary had a gift to make people laugh and she always left you with a smile. They will be sorely missed.

Don and Mary are survived by their son Nick and his wife Lacey and granddaughter Anna; and son Sonny Pedrotti; Don’s siblings Dan Pedrotti, Sylvia Grandy, Sid Pedrotti and their spouses and many nieces and nephews. Mary’s siblings are Dorothy Mello, Joseph Mello Jr. and his wife Teresa Mello, Barbara Mello-Wolf and many more nieces and nephews and great- and great-grand-nieces and -nephews.

A potluck celebration of life for Don and Mary will be held July 22 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Ferndale City Hall Auditorium. Family and friends of Don and Mary are cordially invited.

###

Barbara Mae Rice, 80, of Arcata, passed away, Thursday, April 27.

Barbara was born on February 16, 1943 in Cleveland, Ohio to Howard Ludwig and Gertrude Romisher.

Barbara grew up with her sisters Pauline, Debbie, Cher and brother Eddie in Euclid, Ohio.

She attended Ohio State becoming a licensed practical nurse and met her husband, Roger Rice, who was studying to become a geologist. They had a daughter, Vanessa Rice.

She moved to California for the remaining years of her life and lived by her sister Pauline and daughter Vanessa. She worked as a Librarian at Cher-ae Heights Rancheria in Trinidad.

She loved to read, garden, sew and do artwork in her spare time.

She is survived by her daughter, Vanessa Rice, sisters, Debbie DeMarco and husband Dean DeMarco, Cher Pokorny and husband Ken Pokorny, brother, Eddie Romisher and his wife Linda Romisher, niece Chantel Henderson and husband David Henderson and children Jackson, Dylan and Matthew.

Your wings were ready but our hearts were not. Our love is eternal.

###

PREVIOUSLY:

• The Ferndale Fairgrounds’ Grandstands are in a Perilous State of Disrepair, So the Board of Supes is Holding an Emergency Meeting Tomorrow to Discuss Possible Solutions

###

The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a $1 million funding request this Thursday afternoon to pay for emergency repairs to the grandstands at the Ferndale Fairgrounds that were damaged during the Dec. 20 earthquake.

If the grandstands aren’t repaired soon, the Humboldt County Fair Association will have to cancel the popular horse races.

A few months after the earthquake occurred, the county hired a structural engineering firm to perform an in-depth inspection of the grandstands. The county recently received the initial draft assessment determined that the building “currently appears adequate to support vertical loads, but not lateral (seismic) loads of the type that need to be taken into account for occupant safety,” according to the staff report.

“In a major earthquake, the roof of that facility could fall,” Public Works Director Tom Mattson told the board. “The grandstands will not collapse, but the roof could come off and there’s a fall zone around the entire grandstand of about 66 feet that needs to be protected.”

With opening day less than two months away, staff asked the engineering firm to come up with some options that would allow the county to repair the grandstands in time for the fair. The problem: There are other deferred maintenance and other earthquake-related repairs that the county needs to address.

Mattson | Screenshot

“This project does not do anything for the deferred maintenance or the earthquake repairs,” Mattson said. “We’re just stabilizing the existing facility and not making any real improvements or repairs to the damage that the facility has, but it would make [the grandstands] usable. … We’ve met with a number of contractors on site … [and] we did get a note from one contractor this morning that they could do it if they got the ability to work six days a week and got noticed to move ahead very quickly.”

The temporary fix would cost the county upwards of $1 million. There’s a possibility that a chunk of those funds could be reimbursed through the state Office of Emergency Services (OES), but “that is not a guarantee,” Mattson said. “It does qualify for some OES funding because it was damaged in the earthquake and that is 75% reimbursable but they will not pay for deferred maintenance. … I’m pretty confident we can get some reimbursement but I can’t guarantee that.”

The other option is “a controlled failure” in which staff would essentially control where the roof would fall. “If we can do that and protect the racetrack then the races could still occur, but the grandstands could not be occupied,” Mattson said.

First District Supervisor Rex Bohn asked if there was a possibility that the temporary fix could be able to tie into a permanent fix down the line. “Or are you talking about a teardown [and] a complete rebuild for a permanent fix?”

“We are not talking about a teardown,” Mattson said. “We haven’t even gone there at this point. Our whole focus was looking at how could we get this facility back open for the fair.”

Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell asked what temporary stabilization of the grandstands would entail and if it would involve taking the roof off the facility. Mattson said the contractors would provide metal supports at 25-foot intervals on all sides of the facility to provide extra reinforcement

Bushnell noted that the county isn’t exactly “flush with any kind of money” and asked where the funding would come from and whether the board could afford to allocate any additional funds from the Local Assistance and Tribal Contingency Fund.

“We have $1 million that’s available in the remainder of our 2020 finance plan that could be accessed immediately and I would certainly advocate for that to be the first route for funding,” said County Administrative Officer Elishia Hayes. “We have $2 million in Local Assistance and Tribal Contingency Funds that your board has decided not to allocate to wait to see how the next fix fiscal year shakes out.”

Hayes added that the county would have to continue working with the Humboldt County Fair Association to better understand the total cost of the project and if they would be eligible for reimbursement.

Speaking during public comment, Andy Titus, board president of the Fair Association, emphasized the countywide economic impact of the Humboldt County Fair and urged the board to allocate the funds for a temporary fix.

Titus | Screenshot

“If we cannot use the grandstands and we can’t have horse racing, that eliminates the majority of that revenue that comes from out of the area into [our community],” Titus said. “That helps the small businesses continue, that helps the grocery stores, that helps the gas stations, that helps the taxes that you guys get from. Obviously, it helps us as well. I just think that this has to be a group effort and we have to work together to figure out how to make this happen.”

Michael Gunner, a resident living in the Humboldt County Fairgrounds RV Park, criticized the Fair Association and the county for failing to adhere to ADA compliance standards in the RV park and the restrooms.

“The stadium three years ago got an elevator that’s still sitting on the ground,” he said. “Depending on how the [Fair Association’s board] meeting goes tonight and what they do, my attorneys will probably file for an injunction to shut the fairgrounds down. … You’ve got some major problems and people who are disabled are being discriminated against, so you need to take that into consideration. … I’ve never done this before but I need to stand up and speak at this point.”

Area resident Cindy Olsen described several improvements the Fair Association had made during her 24 years on the board, including ADA improvements to facilities. “We just had a lift installed in our grandstand to accommodate the disabled,” she said. “The cost for this was over $75,000 [and] that amount was covered by a trust. … The fair has constructed a super box just past the finish line to accommodate the higher-end sponsors and the handicapped.”

Following public comment, Bushnell made a motion to approve the $1 million funding request from the county’s 2020 finance plan and directed staff to return to the board should the funding request exceed that amount. She also requested that Bohn join Hayes and Mattson in working with the Fair Association throughout the repair process. Bohn seconded the motion.

Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo and Fifth District Supervisor and Board Chair Steve Madrone were a little more hesitant to move ahead with the funding request given the nature of the county’s finances. 

“I just have a lot of apprehension about spending more than what we can finance given the state of our county budget,” Arroyo said. “I’m on board with addressing those immediate concerns but what it looks like longer term I think we do have to grapple with. This is not an easy time to consider expenditures above and beyond what we can include in the finance plan.”

Arroyo added that she and her partner had their first date at the Humboldt County Fair and, while it holds a “special place in [her] heart,” she felt compelled to note the concerns of her constituents surrounding horseracing. 

“I gotta say, I’m more interested in maintaining our infrastructure and helping to support all the other things that the fair is and does for people, like the kids that show their sheep,” she said. “I don’t really want to kind of center this around the support of horse racing or the community pros or cons with respect to that. … But that said, I know that it’s a big revenue generator and the Fair has a lot of other aspects that mean a lot to a lot of people. So, I get it.”

Similarly, Madrone expressed his love for the fair but noted that the county is in “a world of hurt with our budget.” He asked if Fair Association staff had an estimate of how much revenue the fair – specifically horseracing – brings in annually. 

“It’s hard to give you an accurate number but I can tell you admissions would be way down,” Titus responded. “I mean, if you go there on Ladies Hat Day or the other Saturday there are 5,000 people there. Would they come without the horse racing? I don’t know. Some may, most probably wouldn’t. The truthful answer is we don’t know.”

“But it’s not a million dollars?” Madrone asked.

“For one year? No. It’s not a million dollars,” Titus said. “But I can guarantee you if you don’t invest this million this year that county is going to lose three to four million dollars that the fair brings in that support the local businesses. I can give you that number pretty confidently.”

Madrone also asked about the status of ADA improvements at the fairgrounds. Assistant CAO Karen Clower said the county completed “quite a bit of work” and “met the terms of the consent decree at the time” between 2016 and 2020.

“There is a large amount of work that still needs to be completed at the fairgrounds,” she said. “It is included in our compliance plan that your board adopted in 2020. We do have a timeline laid out for that and we are looking forward to working with the Fair Association on completing the barriers that remain.”

Bohn noted that he would rather see the money spent on other infrastructure improvements on Mattole Road but emphasized that there is no way around it. “This building is ours,” he said. “We have to fix it.”

After a bit of additional discussion on the merits of horseracing and potential opportunities for reimbursement, the board approved the funding request in a unanimous 4-0 vote, with Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson absent.

###

The Humboldt County Fair Association board will hold a meeting to discuss the matter this evening (Thursday) at 5 p.m.

California’s reparations task force delivered its final recommendations to lawmakers in Sacramento Thursday, and some in the audience commented on the absence of one of the early champions of the task force, Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Task force members also noted the irony of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action in higher education on the day the task force’s nearly 1,200-page final document, with hundreds of recommendations, is released to the public.

“I would encourage the Supreme Court to read the interim report,” said Cheryl Grills, a task force member. “I would encourage them to read the final report and understand the legacy of enslavement, and the ongoing harms that are with us to this very day.”

Secretary of State Shirley Weber, whose bill created the task force, called the High Court ruling a “heartbreaking” regression.

“Most of our policy prescriptions are not race-based, but they’re based on lineage. We made the right decision.”
— Kamilah Moore, chair of the Reparations Task Force

The state’s nine-member task force set out in 2020 with the mission to form recommendations for how California could repair the harm from centuries of systemic racism and the legacy of slavery. California became the first state in the nation to have such robust public discussions on reparations.

It wasn’t always pretty. During 200 hours of public meetings, there were some tense exchanges among the hundreds of public commenters and witnesses. And thousands of pages of public documents were written with the help of the state’s Department of Justice.

Now, two years later, Weber and several members of the Black Caucus addressed a full Secretary of State’s auditorium.

“I felt very strongly that if any state could do it, it would be California,” said Weber, during a news conference beforehand.

Proposed reparations

Key parts of the recommendations include reparations payments to descendants of enslaved people, a formal apology, and dozens of policy changes aimed at redressing discrimination against African Americans.

One persistent debate was over who would be eligible for reparations. The task force voted in 2022 that descendants of enslaved people or of Black people living in the United States before 1900 would qualify.

Kamilah Moore, who chaired the task force, said Thursday its decision means the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling on racial preferences won’t affect reparations payouts, if approved.

“Our work remains unaffected by that decision largely because of the wisdom that we had in consulting with legal experts … and that’s why most of our policy prescriptions are not race-based, but they’re based on lineage,” she said. “We made the right decision.”

If adopted the recommendations could mean hundreds of billions of dollars in payments to eligible Black Californians — the broadest proposal in the nation’s history to address past injustices. Taskforce members noted, however, that the panel did not recommend specific reparations amounts, though its report included calculations of what may be owed to most Black Californians.

“Our goal was to study and expose and educate. We have done that,” said state Sen. Steven Bradford, a Democrat from Gardena who is on the task force. “Now it’s up to Californians and the rest of America to read the report and understand what’s there.”

It’s unclear how those recommendations will be received.

Newsom’s absence

Newsom, who made introductory remarks at the task force’s first meeting two years ago, did not attend this, the final meeting. As the meeting convened, Newsom was in Nevada County meeting with state fire officials and the press to discuss plans for the wildfire season.

“The last thing the fire needs is another politician,” said Jonathan Burgess, a fire battalion chief from Sacramento and advocate for reparations. “If you (Newsom) are not here, I want you to know that Black America is watching nationwide.”

Weber said the reparations report was produced for the Legislature, not the governor.

“I’m not responsible for the governor,” she said. “The governor can only do so much. It is the legislature that has to formulate the programs.”

“A check alone will not repair the injustices done, and it would be an injustice to this nation for reparations for descendants to be just a check.”
— Jonathan Burgess, fire battalion chief

Newsom has not said if he will support the task force’s findings, adding he will evaluate the plan when it is delivered to the state legislature. He has frequently said, however, that reparations are more than just payments.

“That implies a deeper rationalization of what is achievable, what is reasonable and what is right. And that’s the balance that we’ll try to advance,” he said on Fox News’ Hannity show.

He noted that Ronald Regan okayed reparation payments to Japanese Americans affected by internment during World War II.

“It doesn’t have to be in the frame of writing a check,” Newsom said. “Reparations come in many forms, but one cannot deny these historical facts.”

Burgess said his great-great-grandfather was brought to California as a slave to mine for gold. He said he agrees with Newsom that reparations are more than a check.

“A check alone will not repair the injustices done,” he said, “and it would be an injustice to this nation for reparations for descendants to be just a check.”

Bigger than state budget

The reparations task force report, which identifies methods for calculating reparations, suggests Black residents may be owed a total of more than $800 billion for decades of over-policing, disproportionate incarceration and housing discrimination. That price tag is more than two-and-a-half times the size of the state’s annual budget.

California lawmakers recently passed a nearly $311 billion state budget package covering a nearly $32 billion deficit with a combination of spending cuts, delayed spending and borrowing.

Few lawmakers have spoken in support of the preliminary recommendations of the reparations task force, but many have said they were awaiting the final report. In CalMatters’ informal email poll of all 120 state legislators, five lawmakers not on the task force responded.

Those who have expressed support include La Mesa Democrat Dr. Akilah Weber, Moreno Valley Democrat Corey Jackson, Tina McKinnor, a Democrat from Inglewood, and Damon Connolly, a Democrat from San Rafael.

A man in the crowd holds up a sign at the Reparations Task Force hearing at the March Fong Eu Secretary of State offices in Sacramento on June 29, 2023. Photo by Semantha Norris for CalMatters

In opposition is Assemblymember James Gallagher, a Republican from Chico, who in a statement asked: “How can we ask new immigrants and low-wage workers to foot the bill for something done 150 years ago, on the other side of the country?”

Bradford said many lawmakers were understandably waiting to see the final report, out today.

“There’s going to be support there, but again asking people right now to stand up and state definitively that they are in support of that, very few are willing to do that at this point,” said Bradford.

Mixed reactions

Many Californians support an apology, but the idea of payments to Black Californians has garnered mixed support. In a 2023 survey by the nonprofit Public Policy Institute of California, nearly three out of five Californians supported the state issuing a formal apology for human rights violations and crimes against humanity for enslaved Africans and their descendants.

Although most Californians surveyed believe racism is a problem, a majority of adults and likely voters said they had an unfavorable impression of the state having a reparations task force.

Grills and task force member Don Tamaki said more than 300 California-based organizations have endorsed the task force’s work. Attorney General Rob Bonta also spoke in favor of the work of the task force.

At a press briefing before the hearing, task force member Lisa Holder held up the hefty report, saying it’s the collective work of the Department of Justice, hundreds of scholars and the community.

“Only half the story has ever been told; here is a document that tells us the full story,” said Holder. “We are not post-racial … Anyone who says that we are colorblind, that we have solved the problem of being anti-Black, I challenge you to read this.”

The audience of more than 200 people filled the auditorium, and more than two dozen others waited outside, switching with attendees to witness parts of the meeting. Some people came from across the state to attend the final task force meeting.

“After being denied our 40 acres and a mule … our time has come. It’s time to right the many centuries of wrong,” said Sabrina Watts-Jefferson, who was referencing an unfulfilled promise made to newly freed enslaved people in 1865.

Donny Brown declared Thursday “a day of celebration and rejoicing” and led the auditorium in a chant: “What do we want? Reparations! When do we want them? Now!”

Racism is personal

Before and during the nearly 5-hour final meeting, task force leaders told personal stories about how racism affected their families.

Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, a Democrat from Los Angeles, said when he was a struggling college student his grandmother told him that when he was a baby, a Klu Klux Klan member called her and said, “Get your son out of school or your grandson will never make it.”

Jones-Sawyer said it made him realize “You have absolutely no right to give up (your) education.”

Weber told of fleeing the Jim Crow south because her sharecropper father was going to be lynched because he stood up for himself at a weigh station.

She said her family relocated to California, where her parents “believed in this little girl called Shirley Weber from Hope, Arkansas, and always told me every day: ‘Little girl, you’re going to be somebody, someday.’”

###

CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Press release from Calfire:

With the 4th of July, right around the corner it is important to understand the dangers of fireworks. CAL FIRE Humboldt – Del Norte Unit Chief Kurt McCray would like to remind everyone to have a safe holiday, considering the safety of themselves and those around them.

Every year fires are caused by illegal and unsafe use of legal fireworks, endangering members of the public and first responders. Those responsible for starting a fire due to illegal use of fireworks can be held financially and criminally responsible. Possession of illegal fireworks could lead to fines and jail time.

The use and sale of Safe and Sane fireworks is decided by local governments like city councils or county of boards of supervisors. Permitted Safe and Sane fireworks will bear a seal from the Office of the State Marshal. Be sure to check with your local government for specific restrictions in your area and take all precautions when using Safe and Sane fireworks if they are permitted.

Fireworks Safety Tips:

• Use only State Fire Marshal approved fireworks
• Local ordinances should be verified before purchasing and/or using fireworks
• Always read directions
• Always have an adult present
• Only use fireworks outdoors
• Never use fireworks near dry grass or other flammable materials
• Light one firework at a time
• Have a bucket of water and a hose nearby

CAL FIRE encourages celebrating by viewing a professionally licensed fire work show. For those using their own fireworks, we urge only the use of Safe and Sane fireworks in a manner that provides for the best safety of persons and minimizes the risk of fire.

California lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom are poised to enact a package of bills that aim to speed up lawsuits that entangle large projects, such as solar farms and reservoirs, and relax protection of about three dozen wildlife species.

Newsom and Senate and Assembly leaders unveiled the five bills earlier this week as they negotiated the state’s $310 billion 2023-24 budget. The deal ended a standoff over the governor’s infrastructure package, which he unveiled last month in an effort to streamline renewable energy facilities, water reservoirs, bridges, railways and similar projects.

The package of bills will make its way through the Legislature on an accelerated schedule. The bills include an urgency clause — meaning they would take effect immediately when Newsom signs but they also will require a two-thirds vote to pass.

Hearings have been scheduled for committees in both houses today. Debate may largely end up being a formality as the package has already been negotiated by Newsom and lawmakers behind closed doors.

The debate and negotiations focused on how California can speed up major projects that benefit the public while ensuring the environment is protected. The wide-ranging collection of bills take aim at broad swaths of state environmental policies shaping how state agencies approve large projects. For instance, the plan to build the Sites reservoir to add dams and store more Sacramento River water has been stalled for years as it undergoes environmental reviews and engineering planning.

The proposals “are really going to help move the needle on water infrastructure projects that are needed to address the impacts of climate change.”
— Adam Quinonez, Association of California Water Agencies

One of the bills sets a time limit for legal challenges for specified water, transportation and energy projects under the landmark California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which can entangle projects in court for years.

Another gives the state Department of Fish and Wildlife new authority to issue permits allowing species that are designated “fully protected,” such as the greater sandhill crane and golden eagle, to be harmed by similar types of projects.

The compromise that Newsom and lawmakers reached seems to have accomplished what compromises rarely do: Environmentalists who initially criticized Newsom’s package say they are satisfied with the changes, and businesses and water agencies, which have backed the package from the beginning, support the changes, too.

The proposals “are really going to help move the needle on water infrastructure projects that are needed to address the impacts of climate change,” said Adam Quinonez, director of state legislative and regulatory relations at the Association of California Water Agencies.

The changes won over the Natural Resources Defense Council, which had pages of concerns about the potential environmental harms caused by Newsom’s original proposals, such as provisions that might have expedited the deeply divisive Delta tunnel.

“It’s good that it’s resolved, and that it’s better than it was and that the budget was able to move forward,” said Victoria Rome, the Natural Resource Defense Council’s director of California government affairs. “But I would say to accelerate clean energy infrastructure, we have a lot more to do as a state.”

Although the wildlife bill would ease some existing protections, Mike Lynes, Audubon California’s director of public policy, hopes that in practice it would actually increase enforcement. “Ultimately, it really will fall on the Department of Fish and Wildlife to make sure that these are good permits, and that the law is enforced,” he said.

So what’s in these bills? And what impact will they have on infrastructure projects and the environment?

What’s happening with CEQA?

One of the bills, SB 149, takes aim at the often lengthy lawsuits brought under CEQA, which tasks public agencies with assessing possible harms of proposed development. Lawsuits by the public and advocacy groups can entangle projects like housing developments, highway interchanges, and solar farms for years.

The bill would set a 270-day limit for wrapping up these environmental challenges for water, energy, transportation and semiconductor projects. The projects must be certified by the governor by 2033 and meet certain criteria. These could potentially include water recycling plants, aqueduct repair, bikeways and railways, wildlife crossings, solar and wind farms, zero-emission vehicle infrastructure, among others.

In a nod to concerns that this would expedite the Delta tunnel, there’s now an explicit carveout saying that particular water project no longer qualifies for the faster timeline.

There’s a big caveat, though: The 270-day limit only applies “to the extent feasible” — a decision that judges would make.

So will the time limit actually speed up cases? That remains to be seen, said David Pettit, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “I think it sends a signal to the judiciary that the Legislature wants these cases hustled up,” Pettit said.

But in practice, he said, there are other major time sinks for the legal process beyond the length of litigation, such as preparing the paperwork behind an agency’s environmental assessment to create what’s called the administrative record. This is critical ammunition in legal challenges.

“It’s good that it’s resolved, and that it’s better than it was and that the budget was able to move forward.”
— Victoria Rome, Natural Resources Defense Council

Newsom’s original version of the bill sparked a battle over which emails should be disclosed in the administrative record by excluding any internal communications that didn’t make it to the final decision makers. Assembly consultants warned this could allow state agencies to pick and choose which documents to disclose.

Now, under the latest iteration, all emails related to the project must continue to be revealed in the administrative record, and only emails over minutia like scheduling can be excluded.

“The bottom line is most emails that are actually pertinent to the project — not like, ‘How about those Dodgers?’ — they will go into the record,” Pettit said. “That is important, because sometimes people will talk candidly over email in a way that others might not.”

What are the effects on wildlife?

SB 147 would allow projects to receive permits to kill certain wildlife species that are classified as “fully protected.” Thirty-seven species — including the golden eagle, greater sandhill crane, bighorn sheep, several coastal marsh birds, 10 fish and several reptiles and amphibians — are listed as fully protected.

Under the bill, only certain types of projects that are considered beneficial to the public could get the new permits, including repairing aqueducts and other water infrastructure, building wind and solar installations, and transportation projects, including wildlife crossings, that don’t increase traffic.

State and federal Endangered Species Acts would still protect rare wildlife and be unaffected by the bill. But it would alter another, stronger protection under state law: “Fully protected” species began in the 1960s as part of an early effort to protect California’s animals, such as the California condor and southern sea otter. Of those, all but 10 are also listed under the California Endangered Species Act.

Unlike the endangered species acts, which allow wildlife agencies to grant permission to “take” or harm a species, so-called “fully protected” species cannot be killed except in rare cases, such as scientific research.

To obtain the new permits, developers and other applicants would need to show that their plans to compensate for the harm to these species actually improves conservation — a more stringent standard than required by the California Endangered Species Act.

This addresses an enforcement gap: Regulators have little authority to make developers work with them to ensure projects take steps to reduce their impacts on those species. “There’s no hook for the regulatory agencies to demand avoidance and mitigation measures, because they’re unwilling to enforce the laws as written,” Audubon’s Lynes said.

Fish and Wildlife Director Chuck Bonham told a Senate committee that without a permit process to allow harm to fully protected species, project developers are left with little recourse if their projects could disrupt these animals. As a result, “every project proponent faces an unnecessary risk for project planning, financing and construction.”

Three species would also lose their status as fully protected: the American peregrine falcon, brown pelican and a fish called the thicktail chub. The falcon and pelican had been listed as endangered species but are now considered recovered, largely due to the 1972 ban on the pesticide DDT; the chub is considered extinct.

“We certainly don’t want to be reducing protections for pelicans and peregrine falcons, but it’s also understandable to be looking to transition them off the list,” Lynes said.

The latest version overhauls Newsom’s original proposal to scrap the “fully protected” designation entirely, which environmentalists worried would significantly weaken protections for these species. Delta communities were especially concerned, seeing it as one of several moves to push the Delta tunnel project forward by targeting the greater sandhill crane, which winters in the region.

The new version of the bill explicitly says that a Delta tunnel project would not qualify for permits to take the crane or any other fully protected species.

Will this actually streamline projects?

The multi-billion dollar question is will these regulations will actually help California build big things faster.

The Newsom administration said they are critical to bolster California’s chances when competing against other states for $28 billion in discretionary funds from the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.

“It’s going to be extremely difficult if not impossible to draw a straight line that if you pass judicial streamlining, we get the federal dollars here in California,” said Adam Regele, a vice president at the California Chamber of Commerce. “But what it does do is it makes us more competitive.”

The Natural Resources Defense Council’s Pettit is skeptical that this will in fact streamline lengthy and litigious approvals under CEQA. He pointed to the loophole establishing a 9-month time limit for court challenges only “to the extent feasible.”

“How do we know that this package will actually speed things up? Because I’m not seeing it,” Pettit said.

Newsom’s deputy communications director, Alex Stack, said he couldn’t name any specific projects that would benefit or ones that had been specifically denied federal funding because of California’s existing laws.

But he said he expects the bills to cut the timeline for major builds in California by up to almost a third. That includes for transit projects, wind and solar installations, semiconductor plants and water storage projects like Sites reservoir.

“It’s climate denial to preserve the status quo — to delay these projects is to delay climate action, clean energy, safe drinking water, and put millions more Californians at risk of devastating climate impacts,” Stack told CalMatters last week.

###

CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.